


An Affair of the Heart

by lilac_bramble



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, Survival, get Hidan out of that damn hole!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-31
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-12 06:22:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7923910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilac_bramble/pseuds/lilac_bramble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As Hidan begins to piece himself back together in Shikamaru's trap, his first thought is just how much he wants to see Kakuzu...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In a hole in the ground...

**Author's Note:**

> Here's another six-year-old fic making its way slowly over from ff.net. I wrote this pretty much as soon as Hidan got buried alive, because I just couldn't bear it, tender-hearted as I am (for Hidan anyway!). I'm kind of holding a gun to my head with this one, hoping I'll have an update ready by the time I've posted all the already complete chapters... because I'm still not quite sure which way it's going to go but I'm really determined to finish it this time.

Even after the final blows had rained down on him, and the dull rumble from up above told him that his makeshift grave was full again, it was long, dark hours before Hidan's panicked breathing slowly began to return to something like normal. At first he had lain stunned - his body had never sustained this much damage before - and barely registered the extra sets of footsteps and strange voices from up above. But after they'd gone and left him alone in dark silence, he noticed the lack of them. He still couldn't quite believe it. How could this have happened. To him? It was unthinkable.

Despite everything, he was, however, still alive. His head was whole, but, oh, what pain there was where hard rocks had rained down on him, first bruising his temple and cheekbone, then pain everywhere at once, until he could no longer tell which part of his scattered body it was coming from.

'Kakuzu will find me,' he told himself forlornly, and for some time he comforted himself with this, imagining how Kakuzu would reproach him for letting his guard down, how he would tease him for being bested by some fucking child prodigy, but at the same time be sewing him back together, calming his fears, large cool hands soothing his torn and fevered flesh.

But after only God knew how long down there in the dark, it began to dawn on him that Kakuzu wasn't coming. After all, hadn't he said himself that Kakuzu had probably finished as well, back when he thought he'd got rid of that fucking shithead Shikamaru for good? Back when, it suddenly swam into his mind, he himself had stabbed Kakuzu in the heart. In the darkness, blood rushed to his face in shame and misery. Maybe, after that, Kakuzu wouldn't want to find him. Maybe he'd see him as a liability, which, indeed, he'd become, or maybe - and the thought struck him like a blow to his own heart - maybe, because he'd let himself be so foolishly tricked, Kakuzu had been defeated and killed. Hidan shivered and licked his parched lips, trying not to think. But what else was there to do?

But no, no. Kakuzu had plenty more hearts after that one. And he was just too good, they'd never beat Kakuzu hand to hand. That Kakashi, while dangerous, had obviously lacked stamina. And the kids were worse than useless. Kakashi had several times exhausted himself needlessly defending them... and yet. The vague, confused memory of those extra footsteps above him swam back. Back-up? Had back-up arrived again. Just like last time... fucking Leader, he thought irrelevantly. If he hadn't called us back then, this would never have happened. We'd've slaughtered them easily. _Oh, Jashin-sama_ , he prayed desperately, _have I displeased you? Have I held back from righteously bloody slaughter too many times? I promised you deaths that I couldn't deliver. Oh my God, please forgive me. Remember how I served you at the Fire Temple. Remember how faithful a follower I have been..._

And slowly, slowly, in the cold dark, under the damp heavy earth, over the course of long hours that turned into days and maybe weeks, the pieces of Hidan began to draw back together.

He spent his waking hours hallucinating and any sleep he got was plagued by horrifying dreams. The clayish earth pressed unbearably on his eyelids, the unbelievable pain of his severed limbs burned like alternating ice and fire. He could taste blood and earth in his mouth and his throat felt swollen and horribly dry. Fragmented memories chased each other through his fevered brain, each more horrible and shameful than the last. _'You talk too much,'_ he heard the hated Shikamaru say, over and over, and Kakuzu warning him, _'Don't let your guard down, you'll die.'_ And he began to toss and turn under the pressing earth, not yet registering what this meant, and at no point wishing, like he'd so often claimed, that he really could die. Nothing was further from his mind.

Tossing and turning, his hand clenching into a fist, Hidan suddenly realised that he could move. Somehow, his torso had reformed, and one arm was reattached. With panicked urgency he scrabbled and tore at the rocks and clay around him until he found the rest of his scattered body parts. He had no sense of how long it took to find them all, and afterwards he lay gasping and panting in the dark, exhausted, clutching them to him. Then all he could do was lay his battered limbs in the right places, trying to bind them with torn fibres of his cloak, propping then up with compacted clay. _Kakuzu_ , he thought wretchedly, _Kakuzu, if only you were here_. He heard Kakuzu's voice in his mind, roughly telling him to sit still, stop complaining. He could almost feel one large strong hand between his shoulderblades, the other making sure his head was positioned just right, and his dry eyes began to sting. Slowly he blinked the tears away. What good would that do him? He just had to wait.

Passing the time with muttered prayers to Jashin and unsystematically tearing at the rocks and earth above him, tearing his fingertips as well in the process, Hidan finally found himself whole again.

And once whole, it really wasn't so very much of a struggle for him to get out of the hole, though it still took hours. The rocks and earth were only loosely compacted - he was lucky it hadn't rained much in this area. Still, he was panicked and desperate, he'd been struck by a blinding claustrophobic frenzy as soon as he was able to move the whole of his body, and he'd torn his hands and arms to shreds in his hurry. And he'd forgotten that the hole wasn't supposed to be the only thing keeping him in. As he reached the surface he'd been confronted with the freakiest looking _reindeer_ thing which nearly scared him out of his wits.

In fact, there was a whole herd of them, and they might have actually succeeded in keeping Hidan down, had it not been for sudden sounds of disturbance in the distance that sent the lot of them bounding away. Hidan crouched shivering and blinking in the daylight which seemed blindingly bright after so long underground. There was a cool wind, and he was butt naked, covered in blood and dirt. What a fucking joke, he thought wretchedly. The immortal Hidan, one of the infamous zombie twins, reduced to this. Adrenaline ebbing away, he felt suddenly awful, dizzy and weak, for after all, he hadn't eaten or drunk anything for days, maybe weeks. He crawled a little way until he reached the edge of the clearing and there he collapsed panting in a patch of dewy grass.

He knew he couldn't rest for long. It was some lucky chance that had called - or scared - the deer away, and at any moment they might be back. He rubbed his hands and face on the clean grass and stretched, trying to ease the stiffness in his abused limbs, then crawled a little further. He found a little stream and drank deeply before splashing the water on his face, then over his chest and shoulders. He hated being dirty, especially when it made him sticky and stiff as well. Blood was caked thickly around his jawline, and his hair was full of mud and blood combined. He rinsed it through and slicked it back with water from the stream, catching sight of his reflection as he did so. Same handsome face, though thinner than before and dark around the eyes. Hidan smiled weakly at himself, and for a moment thought he saw a familiar masked face appear over his shoulder. But no, there was nothing - his heartbeat slowed again - he realised he was just getting confused, seeing things again, probably through pain, fatigue and lack of food.

As soon as he felt a little rested he pushed on more quickly, making for the place where he and Kakuzu had been ambushed all those days ago. He wasn't sure what he hoped to find there, given that the battle must be long over by now, but he couldn't think where else to go, and that place dominated his mind. When he found it, however, the place had changed almost beyond recognition. That huge crater in the ground! What the hell happened? Hidan asked himself. Other than that, there was no sign that a battle had recently taken place. Only - a glint of red and black caught Hidan's eye over into the bushes on the far side of the clearing - was that an Akatsuki cloak? He crossed over to it, and yes, it was. Kakuzu's cloak - they'd left it there.

Hidan knelt and picked it up, then buried his face in it as a wave of despair washed over him. Kakuzu wouldn't have left his cloak behind. Dead or as a prisoner, the Konoha shinobi had taken him away. A faint scent of Kakuzu still clung to the cloak, and Hidan inhaled deeply. Sure, he'd been a cranky, short-tempered heathen bastard, but they'd been together a while and, damn it, Hidan missed him so badly. He just couldn't deny to himself that Kakuzu had always been looking out for him. Why, when he'd always affected to find Hidan an irritating encumbrance? Hidan chuckled miserably into the cloak. He'd known Kakuzu hadn't really meant it. He remembered Kakuzu suddenly appearing out of nowhere in front of him as he'd been about to be skewered with that raikiri, and the dull thump of his foot connecting with Hatake Kakashi's chest. Kakuzu collecting his forehead protector for him before they left to seal the three-tails. Swinging by his hair as just a head from Kakuzu's hand, as Kakuzu... Hidan forcefully stopped his train of thought as the cloak under his face began to get strangely damp.

Wiping the back of his hand across his eyes, Hidan stood up and slipped the cloak on. It was a little big for him, but it felt good to be warm again. He found some soldier pills in one of the pockets and ate one. He caught sight of Kakuzu's discarded headgear lying on the ground and stuffed it in the other pocket, where his hand encountered something cold and hard. Something round - he drew it out. It was the Jashin symbol from his rosary - Kakuzu must have picked it up for him and forgotten it. Absurdly touched, and hugely relieved to have it back, Hidan pressed it to his lips, murmuring incoherent and barely intelligible prayers.

It was getting towards late afternoon by the time Hidan finally moved on, now making very definitely for Konoha. He had no clear plan of action, but he did have a strange feeling that something was happening, and as he drew nearer he could smell smoke on the air and hear far off rumblings and crashings. And by dusk, looking down on the village, he could see why. Destroyed. Totally destroyed. It was unbelievable. Apart from the very outskirts, everything was gone. Not much was happening now, though in the centre he thought he could see some movement. Obviously some people had managed to find shelter from whatever disaster had happened here.

He descended unnoticed into the village and began to comb through the crumbling buildings. And at last he found it - one wall entirely broken down and the second storey caved in, but the research facility was still standing.


	2. The ruin of Konoha

Heart pounding, he picked his way over the rubble to an internal door that leant outwards at a drunken angle, half wrenched off its hinges. Edging past it, he entered a dim room, still bizarrely lit by a flickering strip light. Must have emergency batteries, he thought irrelevantly. There was an examination table in the centre of the room, trays of instruments laid out beside it. All along one wall were metal drawers that somehow reminded Hidan of the exchange point where he and Kakuzu had taken the monk Chiriku... and looking closer, he saw that the drawers were labeled with names and dates. It didn't take him long to find 'Akatsuki Member - Kakuzu', and the date on which they'd been ambushed.

He pulled open the drawer and was met with a gust of cold air. It was a refrigerated unit. And Kakuzu lay there in front of him, whole, but still and cold. Dead.

'Kakuzu,' said Hidan uncertainly, his voice catching in his throat, which was suddenly constricted and dry. 'Kakuzu...' Staggering slightly, he lifted him out of the drawer and laid him on the table. He stared down at the body of his partner, not knowing what to do, a sick weight settling on his chest. He swallowed uncomfortably, a muscle twitching uncontrollably in his cheek. The light flickered, glinting off the trays of instruments, and Kakuzu lay there on the table, doing nothing.

Suddenly Hidan grabbed a surgical knife from one of the trays, and without stopping to think, he rushed back outside, to where he'd seen a dying Konoha shinobi earlier. The man's heart was still beating. Hidan slashed and hacked his chest open and pulled it from his body. Rushing back to Kakuzu he pressed the heart into the hole that Kakashi's raikiri had made in him, where his own heart should have been.

'Kakuzu!' he moaned, 'take it, take it!' He stared at the hole in his partners chest, willing those weird little threads to come out and knit the heart into his body. But nothing happened. Hidan leant over Kakuzu, staring wildly into his face, and felt the stolen heart cease its beating under his hand. Slowly, jerkily, like a puppet whose threads are cut one by one, he sank down to rest his head on Kakuzu's chest. Blood from the heart of the unknown ninja smeared his cheek, and his bloody fingers gripped Kakuzu's cold shoulders.

'Kakuzu,' he murmured into the cold flesh, 'you'd never let me do this if you were alive, would you? Well, what can you do now, arsehole?' He stared blankly at the blood on his fingertips, and suddenly panic, loneliness and revulsion gripped him. He slid off Kakuzu's body and down onto the floor, where he leant against the solid side of the examination table and began to shake convulsively. He thought for a moment he might be sick, and it wasn't because of the smell of corpse, either. The refrigeration had kept Kakuzu in perfect condition. He didn't smell yet at all. It was the absolute stillness and lifelessness of him, and that unfamiliar feeling of aching loss that Hidan experienced each time he looked at him. It was unbearable.

Hidan bit his bottom lip, which was trembling uncontrollably, and tried to keep down whatever was rising in him - tears, vomit, he didn't know. He was breathing fast and shallowly, and he couldn't think, he just couldn't think. He wasn't used to having to think - Kakuzu used to do all the thinking for him. 'Hidan,' he heard his deep voice in his head, 'Hidan, dodge it,' 'Hidan, above you,' 'Watch out for the shadows, Hidan...'

He took out his Jashin symbol again and pressed it to his mouth. 'Jashin-sama,' he murmured, 'Help me. Help me. I need him. I know he was an unbelieving heathen prick, but he saved your devout follower so many times. He helped me make you so many sacrifices, I owe him, seriously, please, what do I _do_?' But no answer came, and he couldn't think what to do. He leant there against the table as the sky got darker and darker outside, and stars came out, and the scent of evening flowers, jasmine and daphne, wafted in, incongruous in the shattered and ruinous surroundings. And Hidan crouched there trembling, listening to his own heartbeat, frighteningly loud and rapid in the stillness.

_I need a heart for him that won't stop, not like that useless piece of shit_ , he thought and he stood again and pulled the lifeless and rapidly cooling heart out of Kakuzu, and flung it disgustedly aside. He put the Jashin symbol back in the pocket of Kakuzu's cloak, closing his hand around it so tightly that it cut into his hand before letting it go. Not stopping to think, and moved by an impulse he didn't entirely understand, he took up the knife again and this time cut open his own chest, screaming with the pain and hardly knowing how he did it as he wrenched out his own heart and pushed it in to Kakuzu.

Then, doubled over with pain, he collapsed on top of him again. Somehow, this was a different kind of pain from the many varieties he'd experienced before, and he just couldn't take it in his stride. He tried to get a grip on himself, but to no avail - he could hear himself breathing in pathetic little hyperventilating gasps, and moaning weakly, but his body seemed to be beyond his control. One hand clasped the hole in his chest, the other tilted the immobile face of Kakuzu towards him, at which he stared, wild-eyed. His immortal heart kept on beating in Kakuzu's chest, but there was no change in that still face. Grief and pain finally began to overwhelm Hidan, and tears streamed down his face, blinding him and convulsing him so that it felt impossible to breathe at all. 'Kakuzu,' he gasped, 'Ah, it hurts! My heart, Kakuzu!'

He ran a shaking fingertip covered in his own blood over Kakuzu's lower lip and onto his tongue, as if his own blood ritual might help revive him. Still nothing happened, and he pressed his hand over his still warm and beating heart, despairing, but still willing Kakuzu's body to claim it for his own.

Head reeling with the pain, and his vision blurred by the tears that just wouldn't stop, Hidan didn't noticed the slow warming of Kakuzu's body or the flickering of his eyelids. He did notice the change in the pulse of his heart though, and for a sickening moment he thought it was going to stop beating. 'Kakuzu,' he choked out, pulling back a little and blinking desperately to try to see.

The heart settled into a slower steadier beat under his fingertips, and he clutched harder at the wound in his own chest in surprise and uncertainty. Dimly and blurrily, through his tears he thought he could see green eyes calmly regarding him. 'Kakuzu?' he said again.

He felt a hand brush his cheek, and heard a deep voice that vibrated through the body beneath him. 'Hidan? Is that tears, Hidan?'

A calloused but gentle thumb wiped the tears from his eyes, one after the other. For a moment, Hidan saw Kakuzu's living face clearly again, but he couldn't stop the flow now he'd begun. Kakuzu's hand slid around to the back of his neck and pulled his head down to rest in the hollow of his shoulder, against his collarbone. 'There there,' he said, his voice conveying amusement and concern at the same time, 'it's alright now, Hidan...'

He wanted to stay like that and simultaneously forget everything that had happened and pour it all out to Kakuzu. But - 'My heart, Kakuzu, my heart--' was all he could force out. And he felt Kakuzu's other hand explore first the exposed beating heart in his own chest, then the empty hole in Hidan's.

'Hidan!' The tone of Kakuzu's voice changed, became deeper - surprised and serious. He sat up, holding Hidan tightly to him. 'Hidan!' He sent out a thread from his wrist and swiftly began to stitch up Hidan's still-bleeding wound, while another did his own from the inside. He put his hands firmly on Hidan's shoulders. 'Breathe,' he said sternly, and Hidan struggled to obey. 'Again.'

Slowly, Hidan felt his body coming back under his control. He stopped shaking and the pain from where his heart should be stopped clouding his brain and filling his whole body. It still hurt like hell; at once a dull heavy ache and a sharp, stabbing, burning pain, but as he breathed in deeply at Kakuzu's repeated commands, he was able to remind himself that he was OK, he didn't really need it, he could manage without it, he wasn't, in any case, going to die.

'Fuck,' he gasped, 'fuck, that was insane.' He looked up at Kakuzu and felt a weak smile twitch at the corner of his mouth. 'I hate it when it's only me feeling it...'

'I know,' said Kakuzu, and the deep rumble of his voice soothed Hidan further. 'We'll find another heart for me, and then get this back inside you. You'll be fine.'

'Will that work?' Hidan felt sudden anxiety churn his stomach. He didn't ever want to have to deal with a dead Kakuzu again.

'I think so.' Kakuzu carefully eased Hidan to his feet and swung his legs round to get off the table. He stood there for a moment, breathing deeply, and Hidan stood between his legs, as close as he dared, and felt the familiar swooping sensation in his chest as pain turned to exultation and hovered perilously between the two.

'We'd better get out of here,' said Kakuzu finally, and stood, stretching and rolling his shoulders. 'I don't like the look of it - I suppose we're somewhere in Konoha?'

Hidan only nodded, and Kakuzu looked curiously at him, but obviously decided to leave asking questions for later. He drank some water from a tap leaning out on its pipe from the cracked and listing wall, and splashed some on his face, then accepted the soldier pill Hidan offered him. He collected the three of his masks that had been in the drawer with him, and a few small articles from the wreckage that looked useful, then supported the still shaky Hidan out of the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It would be really lovely to have some feedback on this, so please let me know your thoughts! I really appreciate it and it helps to keep it moving. I'm around on tumblr too and very happy for people to come and talk to me :)


	3. On the road

'You'll have to tell me exactly how you did it, because, Hidan, I was dead, I know,' said Kakuzu as they made their way over the rubble of fallen buildings and out through the ruined outskirts of Konoha.

'Fuck, dude, not now,' Hidan moaned, 'Let's get out of this shithole before we have our cosy little gossip, OK?' The unaccustomed pain was making him cranky, and the whole place made him nervous. He wanted his scythe back.

'As you like,' Kakuzu replied imperturbably, 'although I don't think we're in much danger here. I'll admit, this isn't what I expected to see...'

Hidan only grunted in reply. The place was really getting to him, and in fact his heart was beginning to echo his feelings, beating very rapidly with a slight unevenness. Kakuzu put a hand to his chest and frowned in annoyance.

'Oi, Hidan, calm down,' he said. 'I know you don't like it, but I really ought to restock a bit while we're here. We don't know when we might meet anyone on the road.'

'Fine!' Hidan growled. Of course it made sense. The sooner Kakuzu was restocked, the sooner he could have his own heart back. And - he smirked slightly, turning his head to hide it from Kakuzu - it seemed to be giving Kakuzu problems. He was glad - it obviously still considered itself his.

Meanwhile, Kakuzu had spotted a dark figure moving slightly among the wreckage and went over. A young chuunin, his lower half trapped under the wreckage, gasping and delirious with pain. Kakuzu ended it for him swiftly.

He gained a second heart in a similar manner, while Hidan looked on with bored indifference and slight distaste. 'You should offer those deaths to Jashin, you know,' he said as they moved on. It's fucking grim, man, what you do, but I'm sure he'd appreciate it all the same.'

'I thought you'd given up trying to convert me long ago,' Kakuzu sighed.

That was before he saved your ungrateful heathen ass!'

'Uh huh, so it was Jashin. Right, well, that explains everything.' Kakuzu would have gone on, but with a barometer to Hidan's mood in his chest, he decided against it. He didn't want to get Hidan over-excited when he was already in quite a state. They passed through a breach in Konoha's surrounding wall, and Hidan's heart-rate began to slow a little, only to speed right up again at the sight of the trees.

'Let's get on the the road, man, I don't ever want to see that forest again,' he said uncomfortably.

'Have you always had a heart condition like this, Hidan?' Kakuzu asked musingly, catching his companion's arm as he stumbled slightly, and steering him towards the path that led to the main road. 'It can't be comfortable for you...'

'Of course it isn't fucking comfortable,' cried Hidan in an aggrieved tone. 'I expect a deeply religious heart like mine doesn't like being stuck in your fucking infidel body, wanker!'

'Alright, alright,' Kakuzu soothed. 'We'll get it back where it belongs as soon as we find somewhere we won't be disturbed.'

Hidan forgot his indignation in order to smirk childishly at Kakuzu's choice of words. Kakuzu turned away and sighed, but couldn't help smiling slightly himself. He wished he had his normal headgear with its face covering. He didn't like Hidan to see how often he made him smile. There was just something so endearing about how easy he was to rile, and his ready stock of profanities and unusual terms of abuse.

'So, tell me what happened,' he said, after they seemed a safe distance from Konoha's main gate. 'Did they take you to Konoha alive? Did you escape in all that mess?'

Hidan choked with renewed fury at the question. 'No, they didn't fucking take me to Konoha! They fucking blew me to pieces and buried me alive at the bottom of a fucking hole in their fucking shithole of a forest. I ought to curse the damn lot of them. And their freaky rat-arsed evil _reindeer_ that they thought would be enough to keep me down there!'

Kakuzu was quite shocked at the obvious depth of Hidan's feeling. And he surprised himself by feeling rather indignant on his companion's behalf. Live burial - well, that was just not nice. He didn't like to think of Hidan buried in pieces, probably panicking, obviously in a lot of pain, not knowing whether his immortality was going to come to his aid or trap him in this hell for ever. And, reindeer?

'They were probably roe deer,' he said calmly.

'Whatever. They ran off when the shit hit the fan in Konoha, anyway.' snarled Hidan, warming to his theme. 'But what really got me was how fucking _vengeful_ that kid was. You know, while you were in that fucking evil-smelling exchange, that lot jumped me and stabbed me without a fucking word? Four against one, no warning, no fucking 'Oh hello, who are you, what brings you to this Godforsaken exchange point?' I was acting in self defence, the fucker fucking cut my fucking _head_ off! What does he fucking _expect_?!'

'I know, I know,' Kakuzu tried to calm Hidan, who really seemed dangerously agitated, 'They were well out of order, and this whole experience has knocked us both for six. We'll take some time out and then go back and finish what we started. But just for now, you need to take it easy, alright?'

'OK.' Hidan said, a little subdued now, and worn out by his own tirade. He leant heavily on Kakuzu. He was just so tired.

They were now a few miles from Konoha, and Kakuzu could see Hidan was on his last legs. And no wonder, given what he'd been through. He must have tested his immortality to the limits, even before tearing his own heart out for Kakuzu's sake. Kakuzu pulled Hidan's arm over his shoulders and put a steadying arm around his waist, then turned off the road and struck out across the fields, making for a deserted looking outbuilding he could just make out in the dimness. A wind was picking up, and the first heavy drops of rain began to fall.

As soon as they were inside the rain began to come down in earnest. Kakuzu laid Hidan down on the straw covered floor and hung a small hurricane lamp he'd picked up in Konoha from one of the ceiling beams. Hidan propped himself up on one elbow and watched apprehensively as Kakuzu knelt beside him undid the top of his cloak, sending out a thread to undo the stitches he'd put in earlier.

'This is going to suck, isn't it?' he said nervously, craning his head forward to look.

'Lie down,' said Kakuzu sternly, 'Yes, it may not be one of your most comfortable experiences, but it'll be over soon. If you behave,' he added as Hidan glared at him, and Hidan flopped sulkily onto his back, gazing with a martyred expression at the shadows the lamp was throwing on the ceiling.

He winced theatrically as Kakuzu picked out the stitches. 'Can't you be a bit gentler, Kakuzu? _I gave you my heart_ , for fuck's sake, aren't you grateful?'

'Yes, I'm very grateful, Hidan, now stop talking so I can concentrate.' Actually, Kakuzu had never had much trouble zoning out Hidan's ceaseless chatter, in fact, he found it rather calming just now, combined with the rapid patter of rain outside. He inserted a row of threads into Hidan's wound and eased it open.

'Arghh,' Hidan yelled and surged upwards. Kakuzu sent out a few more threads which snaked around his wrists and pulled him unceremoniously back down. Hidan gritted his teeth and snarled at Kakuzu, who, after a moment's thought sent a swathe of threads to wrap several times around his mouth and pull his head back down too. Then he found he really had to kneel straddled across Hidan, in order to keep his lower half still, and to get a better angle for his work. Hidan wriggled, possibly in protest - Kakuzu ignored it.

He peered into the wound, which was gently frothing blood. 'Tch,' he said, 'you should really be more careful with yourself, Hidan.' He divided one thread into finer sections and sewed up some internal damage Hidan had made. He'd obviously done this in quite a frenzy. Then, slowly, carefully, he sent his other arm's fibres into himself and, careful to control his breathing and keep the other hearts beating constantly, drew out Hidan's heart.

He laid it in place, and almost immediately it began to quest for its connecting blood vessels. Kakuzu guided it delicately, first sewing up the arteries with his special fine stitching, then the veins. He then proceeded to stitch Hidan back up in layers, making sure everything was nicely aligned. Finally, after sitting back to admire his handiwork for a moment, he released Hidan's head, which shot up and glared at him accusingly. He didn't release his arms yet, rather enjoying the sight of his half-naked partner underneath him, pinned at the wrists. He looked so cute and vulnerable, all flushed and ruffled - Kakuzu didn't often get to see him that way.

'Now, no violent movement, or you'll open that up again. Hm?' said Kakuzu. Hidan nodded in grudging agreement, not meeting his eyes, and Kakuzu released his wrists, one at a time, and moved off to sit beside him. 'Feeling better?'

Hidan sat up slowly, running one hand over the stitches and doing little experimental stretches of his shoulders and upper body. 'I guess so,' he said. 'Thanks, Kakuzu, you're the man.'

'No problem,' Kakuzu replied. He switched off the lamp and found a place to stretch out on the floor to sleep. He saw Hidan shiver a little, glancing at the gap under the door, and continuing in an offhand tone, indicated the floor beside him, 'You can come over here, if you like, you'll be warmer.'

There was actually nothing Hidan wanted more at that moment than to drop his pounding head back into that comfortable hollow of Kakuzu's shoulder and stay there. So he took his partner at his word, draping the cloak over both of them and wriggling as close as he could get. 'You realise I'm naked under this cloak, don't you?' he murmured softly, relaxing against the warmth of Kakuzu's solid, comforting presence and feeling a strong arm go around him.

'Yes, Hidan, I realise that,' he heard Kakuzu's calm voice reply as he finally drifted into undisturbed sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, let me know what you like about it (if you like it!)... it may shape future chapters! I'm a little bit stuck some way ahead right now... That might just be because 'Is it Life or Art?' is flowing better though... who knows? Anyway, I always love to hear from people so don't be shy! ~lilac


	4. The grey early morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few extra edits are creeping in now... it's quite tempting to dive in and go at it til it's 'Is it Life or Art?' length, but probably better not...

Kakuzu woke in the grey early morning, a little stiff and chilly, but hugely relieved to be waking at all. It occurred to him as he lay there on the hard floor of the barn that he still didn't know how long he'd been dead for - he'd meant to ask Hidan last night, but Hidan had been so tired... Kakuzu turned his head to look him. He actually looked peaceful sleeping, so unlike his waking self. Kakuzu smiled, but it was a smile with an undercurrent of reserve.

Supporting the back of Hidan's head with one hand and extricating himself with some difficulty, as Hidan had had wound himself around him tightly in the night and was half on top of him, Kakuzu rolled them both over slightly so that he could get a look at the effects of last night's surgery. Hidan's wound was now no more than a slightly angry looking red line. Running his fingertips across it, Kakuzu could feel that it was healing well. The stitches were holding nicely, too. No doubt when he woke, Hidan would be bitching about how they itched and pulled, but Kakuzu thought they should stay in for at least another day.

He let his hand linger there over Hidan's heart, feeling it gently beating, and asked himself what he really wanted from him. Kakuzu was not into self deception - or indeed self denial - and he couldn't pretend to himself that he didn't find Hidan intoxicatingly erotic. He had for some time. He had, however, always kept his urges sternly repressed, assuming that they were not reciprocated. Of course he'd had moments of wanting to take Hidan anyway - he could've easily, he was sure - and it was no moral reason that had held him back, rather a kind of protectiveness that was usually utterly foreign to his nature. That and, if he was honest, the fact that he and Hidan were comfortable with each other. Their relationship might be volatile, but it was easy, and he valued that. But now there was the unsettling fact that the willing Hidan that he'd thought was only a fantasy might suddenly be within the bounds of possibility.

Still, as a cautious man, he didn't want to start anything within himself that could easily get out of control, not without knowing for sure that the reward was guaranteed. He could feel himself growing seriously aroused now and thought that he had better get up. One of Hidan's legs had worked its way between his own and he'd flung one arm possessively across his chest again. Half on the cloak and half on Kakuzu, he must have spent the night in far more warmth and comfort, but Kakuzu didn't begrudge him that - somehow, it seemed due to him. He tucked Hidan back into the cloak, drawing it up snugly around his face, letting his fingers brush against that ivory skin just for a moment. Then, marvelling at his partner's ability to sleep through such disruption, he strode briskly over to the door.

It had rained itself out in the night and the dawn was clear and still. Kakuzu leant on the wooden door-frame, staring out at the fields around the barn, and began to consider what they should do next. He didn't intend to think about Hidan - his thoughts were intended to be entirely practical - though his partner might feel safe and secure enough to sleep like a log in broad daylight an hour's march from Konohagakure, Kakuzu had a better grasp of the danger they were still in. But, somehow, his thoughts kept drifting back to him anyway.

Trying to remember what had happened in the final moments of his own fight, the only thing he could remember clearly was the piercing sensation in his chest, that awful, deadly pain and the equally awful realisation the Hidan was probably in fairly serious trouble. He knew that if he'd walked away from his fight the first thing he'd done would've been to search for Hidan. At the time, he'd been in no doubt that he'd be alright himself.

But of course things hadn't quite worked out like that. The thing was, he'd never really have expected Hidan to come looking for him. He certainly wouldn't have felt he could count on it. And yet, look what had happened. And Hidan had been prepared to sacrifice his own heart! Kakuzu couldn't quite get it straight in his head. It seemed to imply a far greater depth of feeling than he'd ever ascribed to Hidan before. He had to rethink his whole position with regard to him. And now - he glanced over his shoulder at his still-sleeping partner - there'd been several episodes of intimacy that couldn't be ignored. His first, unthinking acts - he shivered slightly, thinking back - it had felt so natural, so right, just to hold him. For a moment all the distance he'd carefully kept between them had just evaporated.

Did Hidan always want to close that gap between us? The thought made Kakuzu's stomach twist. All the times he'd peremptorily brushed him off, all the times he'd ignored him, hushed him, the hard words he'd thrown at him replayed themselves in his head. Hidan had always acted hurt - the wounded glances - maybe it hadn't been such an act after all. Had he, in his loud, obnoxious way, been seeking Kakuzu's approval all along. Kakuzu's natural caution took over and suppressed the idea. Hidan was impulsive, and notoriously careless of his own body. When he'd come to find Kakuzu he'd been shaken and scared and desperately wanting someone to depend on. It didn't mean Kakuzu should read anything into it. He didn't intend to do or feel anything he might regret later.

He forced his mind back to more practical problems. There was their position with regard to Akatsuki to consider. Depending on how much time had passed, and reading between the lines of what Hidan had told him it seemed like it must have been at least a week, Akatsuki probably thought they were dead. And if their former comrades had abandoned them, did they want to go back into the organisation? Would they want to go back anyway? Kakuzu had suspected for a while that Pain's aims didn't quite tally with his own anymore, and after seeing the state of Konoha, he thought Pain might well be behind it. And if that was the case, in Kakuzu's opinion Pain was moving far too soon. Which could make being a member of Akatsuki really quite a liability. Kakuzu realised he was thinking for Hidan as well as himself and sighed, closing his eyes. If they were no longer Akatsuki, then they were staying together out of choice. And he found he couldn't push that thought away.

He turned back into the room just as Hidan stirred and opened his violet eyes, and Kakuzu's hardening resolve to keep his mind and hands off him began to melt.

'Ugh,' he groaned, blinking in the daylight and rubbing his knuckles over his eyes. He flopped onto his back. 'Yo, Kakuzu, where in fuck's name are we?'

'Somewhere we shouldn't stay long,' Kakuzu replied, averting his eyes from Hidan's beautifully modelled upper body. God, he _had_ to touch him. Looking away wasn't working. He could feel his desires reaching boiling point and still somehow kept them down. 'You'd better get moving,' he said, his voice ringing false and strained in his ears.

Hidan just turned over again, burying his face in the collar of Kakuzu's cloak and settling back to sleep. The sight of his sharp shoulder-blades moving under that smooth white skin made Kakuzu's breath catch in his throat. He swallowed with difficulty, longing hopelessly for his mask to hide behind. Desire mutating into anger and frustration the more he held it in, Kakuzu sent out tentacles from both wrists which began to forcefully peel the cloak off Hidan. When he clung on, whimpering in reluctance, a second lot joined the first and snaked around his waist, pulling him upwards and towards Kakuzu. A third started to prise his clinging hands open. Snarling in sleepy protest, Hidan suddenly stopped resisting and tumbled forwards, sprawling naked and flushed at Kakuzu's feet. He looked up, a few strands of hair falling irresistibly over his face, somehow managing to smile and sneer at the same time.

'Say it with words, yeah, Ka-kuzu-chan,' he growled, his voice husky from sleep. 'Can these little fuckers feel?' he continued as the threads slowly released him, brushing against him as they began their retreat into Kakuzu's arms.

'Why, yes, they can,' said Kakuzu coolly, not looking at him.

Hidan snapped his teeth at them lazily, half malicious, half playful, and Kakuzu flicked one sharply against his cheek.

'Ouch, man!' cried Hidan, 'what was that for?'

Kakuzu let it linger a moment against Hidan's smooth skin, then repeated the action several more times in quick succession. Ignoring Hidan's protesting cry of 'dude, that fucking  _stings_ ,' he proceeded vent his pent up feelings on him.

'For not moving when I tell you move,' he began in a low, dangerous murmur, 'for being careless with yourself, your body and your survival, for putting yourself needlessly at risk, for  _never_ thinking,' Kakuzu paused for breath, the slowly over-boiling feelings of rage, pain and anxiety sending out a swathe of tentacles to join the single thread.

These struck Hidan much harder, with a much more satisfying noise, and left a pink mark along his cheekbone. Hidan gasped in shock. Kakuzu hit him twice more, alternating sides so swiftly that as his head turned with the force of one blow it met the next head on.

' _Get_ up,' a new set of threads shot out and grabbed Hidan around the waist, jerking him bodily towards Kakuzu, ' _try_ to think of the danger we're still in, and for God's sake act accordingly!'

''F-fine,' Hidan muttered, aggrieved but subdued as well, putting a trembling hand to his burning cheek, 'you've made your point! Talk about over-fucking-reacting, man...'

Kakuzu extended one arm and reached past Hidan for the cloak, which he drew onto him, gentle now, wrapping threads around his wrists and moving his hands like a puppet master. It was interesting how lost Hidan obviously felt without his scythe. It made him meek and easy to handle. Kakuzu did up the zip, pulling it rather higher than Hidan had been used to wear his own cloak. He didn't want stitches showing.

'Okay now?' he asked, his voice a touch less harsh than before, as if he could erase what had just happened by pretending that it hadn't. Hidan just stared at him with a mixture of apprehension and resentment and he felt bad. He tried to make his voice gentler still, though it didn't come easily to him. 'Time for a henge no jutsu. We can't go out in the daytime looking like S-rank criminals - not just now. So, lose the patterns and make your colouring a little more...' he toyed with the word normal, then rejected it, 'more... conventional!'

'Huh?' Hidan looked at him blankly. 'It's fucking ages since I...' He tailed off and performed the jutsu in a lacklustre manner.

Kakuzu stared at him for a moment. He really wasn't very different. Anyone who'd been with him for more that five minutes would know him. 'Maybe... some trousers?' he suggested dryly. 'And I think your eyes are an even more... surprising colour now...'

Hidan snarled at him, losing patience. 'Well, fuck me, you _prick_ , maybe I'm not so hot at this, but maybe you wouldn't be either if you'd just been bitch-slapped awake! You did that for fun, you sadistic fuck! And I'm fucking starving, my mouth feels like fucking sandpaper, I am totally not ready for a back-to-the-academy fucking nostalgia-fest. Why are you always like this? I thought we - you - we're meant to be - _fuck_!'

Kakuzu waited until Hidan spluttered to a stop, thoroughly entangled in his own sentence structure, before relenting. 'Alright, Hidan, I enjoyed it more than I should, I admit. I apologise. I'll buy you breakfast somewhere nice to make up for it.' He reached into the cloak's pocket and drew out a couple of soldier pills. 'Eat this, it'll keep you going.' He held one against Hidan's lips, then pushed it through when he didn't respond. Hidan chewed it sulkily.

'These are fucking rank, man,' he said with his mouth full. 'I think they're off - you shouldn't try to save money on essentials, Kakuzu, you'll spend more in the long run...'

'Hush.' said Kakuzu, firmly, but not unpleasantly, eating one himself. 'Look, I'll give you an example.'

He transformed swiftly into a brown haired, dark eyed Hidan, a plain black cloak covering a standard ninja outfit.

'Oi oi, Kakuzu,' said Hidan, his mouth curving into a sultry smile, 'if it's possible, you've made me look even hotter than I already am! You're embarrassing me, dude, seriously. You act like you don't like me, but I can tell you think I'm really -'

'Shut up and copy it,' Kakuzu growled. Hidan complied, giving himself a Jashin rosary as well. He blew Kakuzu a kiss off the tips of his fingers and winked at him.

Kakuzu transformed back into himself in a matching outfit, but with the addition of his customary headgear to hide the fact that he just couldn't control his expression anymore when Hidan made those bedroom eyes at him. Did he realise what an effect he was having? He glanced penetratingly at him, but Hidan only laughed, good humour restored, and pulled the real mask and hood out of his pocket. 'I'd forgotten about that,' he said, 'There you are!'


	5. At the hot spring

'Where are we going to go?' Hidan asked as soon as they were back on the road.

'There's a hot spring not far from here,' Kakuzu replied. 'I thought we'd go there.'

'Wow.' Hidan stared - this was an unusual development when travelling with Kakuzu. 'Nice!'

'We could both use it,' was Kakuzu's laconic reply. To be honest, he could still smell morgue on himself, and Hidan was covered in a thin layer of earth and blood under the cloak. Kakuzu wanted somewhere where they could relax and think for a little while, somewhere, moreover, where they wouldn't be expected to go. And also because for reasons he wasn't quite ready to define to himself, he wanted to do something - well, yes - nice.

Hidan's step became a little bouncier, and he caught up with Kakuzu to walk beside him. He couldn't think of anything to say though, for once, so they walked along in silence. It wasn't a tense silence, but neither was it exactly comfortable. It was charged, somehow. Kakuzu smiled under his mask. He'd always disliked it when Hidan trailed behind.

It wasn't far. Although the spring was so near to Konoha it was slightly off the beaten track, off a road that eventually led to some smaller settlements. It was the tail end of the busy season, and Kakuzu was prepared to take the risk. It was very unlikely, anyway, given the state Konoha had been in when they left, that any Konoha shinobi would be there. And when they got there, the sun just beginning to break through the early morning mist, they were in fact the only visitors at the small onsen that Kakuzu chose.

Kakuzu took a room for two and ordered breakfast. The proprietor wanted news from Konoha, but Kakuzu told him they'd come from the other direction, and something in his tone quickly quenched the man's urge to gossip. While he was ordering and negotiating prices Hidan wandered into the room they'd accepted and flung himself down on one of the futons. It was a nice room, high ceilinged and airy, shoji screen doors at either end letting in a lot of soft golden light. He'd left the door to the hall open a crack for Kakuzu and now he reached out from the futon and slid the outer door open a little too, letting in a beam of whiter light. The door led straight out onto a verandah that looked over the bathing area. Kakuzu had taken probably the best room in the house.

Hidan rolled onto his back and watched dust motes dancing in the ray of sunlight. He breathed deeply as warm, slightly steamy and scented air wafted into the room. He stretched his arms out wide and felt peaceful in a way that he normally associated with having a pike stuck through his heart. Just now, he didn't seem to need it. Still, he took the Jashin symbol from his pocket and held it loosely at his mouth, murmuring a rambling and slightly incoherent prayer, letting his eyes drift closed.

When he opened them Kakuzu was by his side, watching him, actually sitting on the side of his futon, one hand resting on his knee, the other by Hidan's head. He was still wearing his mask, but he'd dispelled the illusion that changed the colour of his eyes. Hidan wondered if he smiled as those green eyes met his own and felt a little electric jolt in his stomach at how close they were.

'Were you sleeping?' Kakuzu asked, his voice soft and low, and Hidan shook his head, showing Kakuzu the symbol in his hand.

'You found it for me,' he said. 'I found it in your pocket.'

'I thought you'd want it,' Kakuzu replied, his gaze drifting away to focus out of the door. He didn't tell Hidan that he hadn't in fact forgotten about it when he'd given him back his forehead protector. It was so much a part of Hidan, he'd wanted to hold onto it for a little while longer. It was one of very few indulgences he'd permitted himself, but he'd liked feeling it's cold rounded edge in his pocket as he walked. He looked back at Hidan and indicated the low table at the other end of the room. 'I brought breakfast.'

Hidan sat up and, accepting the hand that Kakuzu extended to pull him to his feet, immediately stopped feeling peaceful. He got a mini rush of adrenaline and forgot to let go, holding on several seconds longer after Kakuzu had released his grip. He was sure he felt himself flush and his palms and the soles of his feet tingled weirdly as if he was sliding down a cliff face.

He wanted to relieve the tension by making some loud and obnoxious remark, but as he crossed the room the smell of food reminded him that it had been literally weeks since he'd eaten anything with real substance. It made him dizzy for a moment. He knelt down and gripped the edge of the table, little black flecks swimming in front of his eyes, and took a moment to compose himself. Stealing a look at Kakuzu between slow calming breaths he was interested to see that he also seemed a little on edge. He caught Hidan's eye and removed his mask at last. He smiled in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring.

'You'll feel better once you manage to start,' he said. Hidan took another deep breath and got a grip on himself. He took a mouthful of rice and then began to eat ravenously. Still, he could only finish half the bowl. Maybe his stomach had shrunk, he thought. He did feel better, but he felt weirdly nervy too. He kept getting adrenaline spikes. He drank some tea, and half a minute later dived out into the corridor in a desperate search for the toilet.

'Fucking soldier pills!' Kakuzu heard Hidan's plaintive yell echoing down the corridor, and smiled wryly, feeling a twinge of guilt. Going back to solid food after surviving for a long time only on soldier pills could have a very disturbing effect on the stomach. He probably shouldn't have let him eat so fast. He wondered if he should go and see how he was doing. He couldn't hear any retching though, and looking into Hidan's bowl, it seemed he hadn't eaten all that much - it would probably be better if he managed to keep it down.

_Don't throw up, don't fucking throw up!_ Hidan thought, clinging pathetically to the sink as he leant over it, swallowing desperately. It wasn't just the food though, he was sure. Some other force was acting on him, making him into a pansy-ass wuss, in his opinion. _Get a fucking grip_ , he told himself. _Calm the fuck down._ Being away from the smell of food was helping _._ But so was not getting butterflies every time he looked up because a certain pair of green eyes was coolly regarding him. Shit! Even just _thinking_ about it gave him butterflies. His stomach churned ominously once more and then began to settle. Hidan breathed a cautious sigh of relief and looked up to stare at himself in the mirror. 'Yeah, fuck you too, cocksucker, stop fucking giving me gip, fucktard,' he snarled at his reflection. He went out into the cool dim corridor and squatted against the wall there for a moment, head in hands, swearing half-heartedly under his breath, letting the last twinges die away before sidling sheepishly back to the room. Kakuzu was probably going to laugh at him now, as well!

Kakuzu looked at Hidan standing the doorway, noting that he was slightly flushed now instead of that white around the mouth look he'd had before. 'Alright now?' he asked, and he did smirk slightly.

'False alarm, dude,' said Hidan languidly, half closing his eyes, hoping he looked cool and collected. 'It was touch and go there, though, I seriously thought I was going to puke my fucking guts out.' He met Kakuzu's impassive gaze and raised one eyebrow slightly. 'And why weren't you there, rubbing my back and holding my hair out of my face, I'd like to know?'

Kakuzu coughed, hiding his smile. Damn, Hidan looked hot like that. He pictured himself supporting him from behind as he retched sexily over the toilet and knew what he'd rather be doing in that position. Then he hastily cursed his imagination and dismissed the ridiculous image - who ever looked sexy throwing up anyway? It was pure fantasy. Hidan, seemingly unconscious or uncaring of the effect he was having and with the rapid recovery and swaggering insouciance of youth, finished his tea and went to the door. He shed his cloak, throwing it back onto the futon, and went out to the spring. Kakuzu finished his breakfast and soon followed, pausing to pick up the cloak and fold it on his way.

Hidan was already neck deep in the water by the time Kakuzu came out. His eyes were closed and an expression of blissful surrender was on his face. He hadn't bothered to renew the illusion on himself, but perhaps it wouldn't really matter. There was no-one else about and it seemed unlikely that the proprietor would come out. Still, Kakuzu was keeping his stitches hidden, just in case. Hidan opened a lazy violet eye as he sat down.

'Mm-hmm, smooth Kakuzu!' He murmured, 'I kind of miss the stitches, though. You don't look quite like you without them...'

Kakuzu stared at him - _you don't look quite like you -_ the tantalising words replayed themselves in his head. _If he feels anything like the way I'm feeling now_ , he asked himself, _then why are we both just sitting here, pretending? What are we waiting for?_ Even so, he did nothing. He tried to make himself relax in the warm water, and it was certainly pleasant, feeling the lingering smell of death and the chilliness he'd felt since waking that morning drifting away from him, but he was still tense, he felt like a coiled spring. He splashed water over his face and through his hair, failing to unwind in the slightest. Hidan had now disappeared entirely under the water, and resurfaced a moment later, eyes screwed closed, shaking the water off him, slicking his hair back with his fingers and trying to get out the last traces of blood and earth. There were still slightly matted bits. He leant back again, trying to soak them out, tugging his fingers through the tangles inexpertly.

'Fuck, this shit is stubborn!' he complained. 'I'm never going to get it out!' It sounded almost like an invitation, a loaded plea for assistance, and Kakuzu briefly imagined himself moving over to him and running his own fingers through the silver hair, easing out the stubborn snarls with a combination of sensitive fingertips and fine thread-work, stroking stray tendrils away from his face, then dispelled this image as well with an impatient shake of his head. He couldn't have moved over to him anyway, even if he'd thought it was a good idea. He felt like he was rooted to the spot.

Hidan glanced at Kakuzu slightly desperately. He'd really have liked him to respond to that pathetic little bait he'd thrown out. He didn't want to make the move. He wanted Kakuzu to take the initiative, and therefore the responsibility for the outcome. He wasn't sure what he'd do if he made a move on Kakuzu and Kakuzu rejected him. He suspected he might go bat-shit insane and start killing shit. Alternatively, he might just fucking break down and cry.

He sneaked another look at Kakuzu, and he could've sworn those green eyes had just looked away from him. _Hang on though_ , he thought suddenly, _has he let his illusion slip?_ He checked again, and yes, there sat Kakuzu in all his stitched glory. Well! He must be distracted, then. Or did he do it on purpose because Hidan had said he liked them? Hidan bit his lip, his heart thumping. _Just fucking take me_ , he silently implored, _just sent out those crazy fucking tentacles and take me!_ How could Kakuzu look so impassive? He wasn't. Hidan just knew he wasn't. He looked over at him again, and this time didn't let himself look away, but waited for Kakuzu to meet his eyes.

It seemed to take forever. Kakuzu seemed to be brooding on something, his chin resting on his interlaced fingers. Hidan kept staring at him, and slowly, slowly, Kakuzu seemed to sense it. Dropping his hands and leaning back slightly, he looked up and their eyes locked. Hidan fought down the urge to break that connection, bit back the flippant words that rose to get him out of the situation, to break the tension. Neither of them said anything, but as if moved by the same impulse they rose with one accord, threw on the white towels that Kakuzu had thought to bring out, and beat a hasty retreat back to their room.

Even as he closed the door behind him, Kakuzu pulled Hidan roughly against him, hands sliding over his slippery wet body and fumbling with the towel at his waist, growling his name against his parted lips. He felt almost dizzy, and realised he was trembling - hell, they were both trembling, with lust, desire, relief - he wasn't sure. They both fleetingly wondered why on Earth they'd waited so long.

It was over quickly - urgent, intense and brief. Both of them were so pent up and desperate for each other that they didn't try to make it last. Half a minute after coming through the door they were down on the futon, their bodies sliding against each other, mouths locked together in fierce and hungry kisses. Their hands were all over each other, Hidan, back arching with pleasure at the feel of Kakuzu on top of him, urging him downwards. And as Kakuzu summarily flipped him over and entered him lubricated with only spit and sweat they were already both only inches away from climaxing just from finally getting their hands on each other. It wasn't an easy entrance, but for Hidan it was pain of the sweetest kind and he relaxed into it, letting Kakuzu ease deeply into him. It only took a few deep thrusts before he couldn't hold back any longer and came hard into Kakuzu's hand. Then Kakuzu felt his own release becoming quickly inevitable, and using Hidan's come as extra lubrication he was tipped finally over the edge. Even at this point Hidan was still gasping out words - incitements, inarticulate moans, profanities - both 'Jashin' and 'Kakuzu' featured several times. He'd been very vocal all along.

They kept moving against each other, slowly now, languid, slippery and comfortable, Kakuzu still gently stroking Hidan, Hidan thrusting minimally into his hand. They sprawled, Kakuzu still half on top of Hidan, neither having any inclination to move away. It was warm in the room, with the sun coming through the screen doors, and Hidan soon drifted into a drowsy half sleep. Kakuzu didn't sleep, but just lay there, one hand tracing lazy patterns on Hidan's thigh. He propped himself up on one elbow, the better to observe the sleeping Hidan. He felt he hadn't been quite right in his earlier analysis. Hidan wasn't really so different from his waking self. He wasn't even that quiet - he seemed to be muttering something, Kakuzu couldn't make out the words - and there was that certain smug self satisfaction about his mouth (now slightly swollen from many bites and kisses) that was absolutely in character.

Kakuzu stroked a line down Hidan's spine, and leant in to gently nip the back of his neck. Hidan stirred and moaned. Kakuzu breathed in deeply, smelling clean damp hair and Hidan's own particular scent. He flicked his tongue over the warm smooth skin, and tasted salt. 'Hidan,' he murmured softly, experimentally, testing the name on his tongue and imbuing it with a new tenderness. He ran his thumb down one of Hidan's shoulder blades, then stroked up again, massaging the muscles lightly with the heel of his hand.

Hidan rolled over, his eyes still glazed with drowsiness and put his arms round Kakuzu, pushing closer to him and rubbing against him. Kakuzu could feel that he was already hard again. 'Nng, Kakuzu...' he said, voice slurred with lust, 'Let's do that again...'

'Now?' said Kakuzu, starting to get hard again himself and smiling, in spite of an inner voice telling him he was kissing good-bye to peace and quiet forever. It was obvious that Hidan was going to be _demanding_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, I have to say, I really did enjoy writing this chapter! Let me know your thoughts, please please :)


	6. Wildlife

Not so much demanding as insatiable, was Kakuzu's considered opinion, some time in the late afternoon.

After that first hurried union they'd taken their time. Lingered, explored, experimented. The second time took most of the rest of the morning. After that they'd just lain together for a while, spent and exhausted, and bit by bit their respective stories had come out. It took some time. Neither of them had quite wanted to address the change that this last battle had worked in them. The time leading up to it had been so heady, exciting, successful. They'd been the gutsiest, most dangerous pair in Akatsuki; they'd known their strength and known it was awesome. Now they were left with nothing constant but each other.

_Are we clinging to each other out of love_? wondered Kakuzu. _Or like the last survivors of a shipwreck_. He looked at Hidan's face, so close to his own, and wondered why it even mattered. And yet. When Hidan had his scythe back - or when Kakuzu had somehow managed to procure him another one - when this undercurrent of vulnerability ceased to run through him, then it would matter why he'd stayed with Kakuzu. As for himself, Kakuzu knew his heart well. He wanted Hidan by his side, and to keep him there. What he realised he didn't know quite so well was Hidan himself. If only he hadn't been so busy guarding against falling in love with him he might know him better now.

Hidan, in his favoured position of being sprawled half on top of Kakuzu, pushed himself up on his forearms and looked down into Kakuzu's face. Kakuzu grunted and shifted position, holding Hidan's surprisingly pointy elbows so they didn't dig into him. Looking into Hidan's eyes, he couldn't help smiling - despite the changes, those eyes were the same as always. Whatever vulnerability was there now, it had always been there. It was part of Hidan. "You know, it would never have happened if we'd been together. I should've followed you," he said, a little breathless from Hidan's weight pressing down on him. "I'm never letting you out of my sight again."

Hidan kissed him deeply. "I'm not fucking complaining," he whispered hotly against his lips. "but you're a paranoid bastard, seriously."

Kakuzu chuckled and pushed Hidan's hair out of his eyes. Hidan's hand joined in too. "It's fucking annoying," he complained. "I seriously need something to put in it…"

Kakuzu smirked, and whispered a suggestion in his ear that actually made Hidan blush. It was possibly the most adorable Kakuzu had ever seen him. And that was how they managed to spend most of the afternoon on the third time. Hidan took it into his head that he wanted to top, and Kakuzu had to remind him quite firmly of how he'd said his deeply religious organs didn't appreciate being inserted into infidel bodies. But he loved it, the struggle for dominance of which the outcome was never really in question; though he wouldn't tell Hidan this, he loved it that he'd still have a go. That the fight hadn't gone out of him.

Now, Hidan had gone back out to the spring, and Kakuzu had joined him briefly, just to get clean again, but he hadn't felt like sitting around. Hidan seemed to be able to sit around til the cows came home. It was probably a youth thing.

So Kakuzu had gone back inside, where it was dim and a little cooler. He put on one of the white cotton yukata provided by the house and sat at the low table, sipping tea and reading the newspaper. It was now late afternoon, and Kakuzu was glad to be able to take a moment to reflect. He hoped Hidan wouldn't want to stay here too much longer. Maybe one more day would be nice, but after that he could see it getting tiresome. Hidan's tolerance for sitting in hot water might be infinite, but Kakuzu really couldn't take it for that long. He felt like a nice cold refreshing shower already...

Smiling slightly at the thought of Hidan's reaction to such a suggestion, he laid aside the paper and unfolded his map. Obviously, they wouldn't want to stay in the fire country very much longer, and Kakuzu had a bad feeling about heading to Amegakure - somehow, he sensed that the days of Akatsuki might be over, or at least severely numbered. He wondered how Hidan would take to a life of low profile bounty hunting. Not well, he imagined. Try as he might, he just couldn't see a future for them. The way was so unclear.

And yet. The thought of any alternative was - awful - to him. The thought of not having Hidan by his side - it was unthinkable, and perhaps that was the reason he couldn't get his thoughts straight about it. He wasn't looking at the matter head on. He was shying away from the idea that their natures - their various needs, desires, preferences - might take them in different directions. He closed his eyes a moment. Hidan had sought him out in the first place because he needed guidance on living an immortal life. Now, Kakuzu felt tired. Before this, before what he was thinking of as the Last Fight, he'd relished the thought of the infinite years to come stretching ahead of him, and part of that had been because of his touchy, crazy, irrepressible immortal sidekick. But Hidan hadn't done a ritual since he'd dug his way out of his living grave. And, worryingly to Kakuzu, he hadn't shown any enormous urge to do one either. Kakuzu laid his hand on his chest, and felt his two stolen hearts thumping. They certainly weren't the best quality he'd ever had, but they were the hearts of reasonably strong and competent shinobi. They'd do for now. He focused on each in turn, trying to gauge their chakra natures. Earth, he thought, and fire. Well, that was useful, at least. Earth he was very comfortable with, and it was good that they were different.

If they hunted bounty, he thought, he could take the hearts he needed when he found the right chakra types, and Hidan could use the rest for his rituals, and maybe it would be enough. He wondered what would happen to Hidan if he stopped the rituals altogether. Would he live a normal lifespan? _Not with his attitude_ , an inner voice said wryly. And Kakuzu gave a mirthless chuckle. Still. With Kakuzu there to look out for him -

He had to stop thinking like that. What on Earth would be the point of carrying on endlessly if Hidan wasn't. Of course, he'd seen a point in it before, but now, he couldn't for the life of him remember what it might have been. Still, no need to worry over concerns that were purely imaginary. Hidan had been in no shape up till now to worry about his rituals - no doubt as soon as he was fully recovered, he'd be as blood-thirsty as ever. Kakuzu found himself wondering what happened if you observed the rituals with the bare minimum of slaughter. Would Jashin know? Would he sense and punish any lack of enthusiasm? Damn it, did Jashin even exist, or was it just some fucked-up jutsu made more palatable by having an accompanying ideology?

But, going back to his earlier point - did he really intend to baby-sit Hidan for the rest of his life? The answer seemed to be yes. He knew, undeniably, that he never wanted to be parted from Hidan again.

* * *

Kakuzu had left the screen door open a crack, and at that moment a loud splash from outside and a shaken sounding expletive roused him from his reverie. His hand shot out and slammed the door open the rest of the way almost automatically. "What is it?" he called sharply, following his hand, the threads slithering as they retracted back inside him.

Hidan was standing at the edge of the water, frozen in an attitude of horror. Seeing Kakuzu standing on the verandah he backed slowly towards him, relaxing the tiniest amount once he reached his side. His widened eyes were fixed over on the far bank. He pointed, and his hand trembled.

Kakuzu's eyes followed in the direction he indicated. A deer was standing just at the edge of the trees that met the rocks on the other side of the spring, but other than that there was nothing. "A deer?" he said, faintly incredulous, and would have gone back inside, but he turned to look at Hidan and saw that he was ashen pale, and had an expression of terror on his face that Kakuzu had never seen before.

"Fuck," he breathed. " _Fuck_! It's one of _them_."

He seemed so genuinely terrified that Kakuzu swallowed his amusement at the idea of his bloodthirsty and fearless partner becoming some kind of bambi-phobe. He realised that the last time he'd seen fear in Hidan's eyes was when Shikamaru's shadow technique had forced him to attack Kakuzu with his scythe. _That should have told me something_ , he thought briefly.

Sighing, he wrapped a towel around Hidan, and threw the other over his shoulders, hoping to stop him shivering. "Do you want me to kill it?" he asked.

Hidan looked up at him, the whites of his eyes showing all around. "Yes," he whispered. "But what if the rest of the pack is there too?"

"Herd," Kakuzu corrected automatically. "I expect they'll run."

"What if it _maddens_ them?"

Kakuzu said nothing, just walked down to the water and shot out his hand towards the deer, intending to break its neck, but it turned and fled before he could get a grip on it. He stared into the forest, looking for other signs of movement, but saw nothing. He thought it was probably just an ordinary deer, but its affect on Hidan concerned him - he didn't want more popping out.

Satisfied that he'd scattered the wildlife for the time being he went back to the verandah, and taking Hidan firmly by the shoulders, steered him inside. He closed the screen door behind them, making sure it was shut tight. Hidan stood in the middle of the room, looking like a lost boy, dripping on the wooden floor. Kakuzu went over to him and detachedly began to rub him dry, starting with his chest and shoulders, then pulling his head against his own shoulder to roughly towel his hair.

Hidan buried his face in the crook of Kakuzu's neck. He was hideously embarrassed, but at the same time, he couldn't shake the image of Shikamaru and his freaky deer, peering into the hole at him, hating him with that unfair amount of blame. And Kakuzu - Kakuzu was being _sweet_ to him. Sweet! He didn't deserve it. He deserved to be slapped with a tentacle until he grew his balls back.

Kakuzu tossed the towel over the drying rail and reached for the other cotton yukata. "There there," he said, putting it around Hidan, "Put this on."

Hidan obeyed, his face scarlet and his head lowered, then suddenly threw his arms around Kakuzu, burying his face in his chest. "Fuck, man," he whimpered. "Did you fucking _see_ the way it looked at me? They're going to fucking put me back there, I'm going to fucking die down there, I can't do it Kakuzu I can't do it again I can't I--"

His words dissolved into formless choking sobs and Kakuzu was taken aback. He found himself with his hands raised helplessly either side of Hidan's head. Awkwardly, he lowered them and gingerly patted his trembling shoulders, then began, a little more instinctively, to stroke the back of his neck and run a caressive hand through his hair. "There there," he said again, with difficulty - his tone unintentionally abrupt and perfunctory. "It's alright Hidan. I'm here."

It was different. It was very different from the sexual intimacy that had come so naturally this morning. Different as well to waking from death and finding Hidan weeping over his body. Then, there had been practical considerations as well. Hidan had been hurt and they'd been in a position of considerable danger. And he'd been dazed and disorientated, which had probably removed some of his inhibitions. Now, they were all there in full force. It wasn't that he had any doubts about his desire to be with Hidan. It wasn't even a simple fear of rejection or mockery. He just _did not know_ how to deal with someone distressed and incapacitated by an irrational fear.

Of course, Hidan had shown fear before, on the battlefield. But that was different again. 'Kakuzu! Do something!' he'd yell, and Kakuzu _would_ do something, and all would be well. Or he'd be afraid that Kakuzu was hurt, and all Kakuzu had to do was say that he was alright. It struck him then that most of the times he'd seen Hidan afraid, he'd been afraid for Kakuzu.

Not, of course, though, that time he'd let him get his head cut off... A half smile twitched the corner of Kakuzu's mouth. That had been fear for himself, pure and simple, in his eyes. Damn it though, that had come back to bite him. If they'd defeated them then and there, they'd never be in this fix now...

He returned his attention to the situation at hand. Taking Hidan's face between his hands, he looked down at him searchingly. Hidan had calmed down a little by now, and looked up at him at first defiantly, then slightly sheepishly, then he began to flush and try to look away. Kakuzu angled his head so that that was difficult. "Hidan," he said firmly. "Trust me. Nothing's going to hurt you. Not while I'm around."

Hidan bit his lip. Kakuzu shook him. "You doubt me?"

"N-no,"

"You're going to be OK. Say it! What are you going to be?"

"O-okay?"

"Correct!"

Hidan shut his eyes for a moment and Kakuzu thought he was calm enough to at least attempt a rational talk.

"Now, tell me," he said, "what makes you so sure it was one of those deer?"

"I fucking _recognised_ it!" Hidan exclaimed, stung at being doubted. "It's horrible fucking cold staring eyes! The colour of its fur!"

"It looked a fairly normal colour to me." Kakuzu's voice was level and calm.

"Well how many deer have _you_ fucking seen?"

"Well, more than you, probably. Are you sure you're not just being paranoid?"

"Fuck you, Kakuzu! They're fucking hunting me down! They want to put me back in that fucking _grave_ \- or - or - _trample_ me, or-- "

Kakuzu gripped Hidan's shoulders again and shook him. "You're getting hysterical. Calm down. This is why you get into these situations. You lose your head…"

"Oh, very funny, Kakuzu, yeah, fucking taunt me with _that_ now, why don't you?"

Kakuzu sighed. He was losing his temper now. Was he really going to have to put up with this equably just because he was fucking him now? Or was it OK to treat him like he always had done. His patience was far from infinite, and his decision was made for him before he could think about it. His hand was raised, and moving fast towards Hidan's sulky recalcitrant face when Hidan managed to block him - just in time - stopping it bare inches from his face.

"No, you fucking don't," he snarled, and he was smiling now, strangely and slightly psychotically. His fingers curled around Kakuzu's wrist in a bruising grip and Kakuzu found that completely instinctively, he'd activated his skin hardening technique and fine black threads were snaking out of his sleeve, hovering at the ready.

Hidan's arm trembled with effort, and so did Kakuzu's as he realised that if he eased off at all, Hidan would probably go flying halfway across the room.

"Relax, damn it," he snapped impatiently, his anger dissipating as quickly as it had gathered. "I'm not going to hurt you - I just lost my temper for a moment, that's all."

"Oh, that's _all,_ is it? That's fucking _all?_ " Hidan's voice was twisted with rage and he could feel his throat constricting with an emotion he couldn't put a name to, but which he felt hover, bitter and numbing, somewhere between disappointment and disbelief. "You've got your fucking _tentacles_ out," he rasped. "You're fucking _serious_! And I don't even have my scythe!"

"You've got your teeth," Kakuzu suggested, almost playfully, hoping to lighten the atmosphere, and watched Hidan's face suddenly go blank. He didn't know what he could've said that could have such a devastating resonance for him and was shocked into silence.

"Seriously, Kakuzu," Hidan whispered brokenly, "I can't fight anymore."

He pressed his cheek slowly and deliberately against Kakuzu's hand even as he poured all his strength into keeping it just there. "Don't fucking think anything's any different," he whispered. "Don't think I'm ever going to lie down in front of you. But I can't-- " He hesitated. "I'm not-- I--"

A longer pause, then, almost inaudibly, "Please Kakuzu. Can you put the tentacles away now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as I remember, this was a hard chapter to write, and clearly a even harder one to follow since this is where the 6 year hiatus occurred! There's beginning to be more fallout from everything they've been through, and the way they've been living up til now - particularly Kakuzu - doesn't make slipping into an intimate relationship entirely plain sailing... 
> 
> But the good news is that most of chapter 7 is now written, and I am beginning to have an idea of where it's all leading... I just hope the style won't seem too radically different!


	7. Night comes on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Despite an idyllic beginning, Kakuzu and Hidan both have a fair few issues simmering under the surface...

Kakuzu put them away. The room felt suddenly darker and he realised the sun had gone in; the afternoon was fast becoming evening. Slowly he relaxed the tension in his arm, and slowly, slowly Hidan reciprocated. They faced each other warily. Kakuzu didn't move his hand from Hidan's face and he was struck by how sharp the cheekbone felt under his fingers, the angle of his jaw against his palm - it hadn't felt that way before. He thought back to when he'd held him just there to reattach his head on the battlefield - it hadn't felt then like he could feel the contours of his skull just beneath the skin. His heart wrenched with sudden horrified pity and what could he do but just hold him? He didn't know what to say or what else to do.

"We should leave," he said finally. "You're right. The deer wasn't a good sign. You're right to be wary-"

"No, fuck that!" Hidan spat, suddenly struggling against Kakuzu's grip. "I'm a fucking mess, what the fuck's wrong with me? I should've fucking _skewered_ that thing! A fucking _deer_! Fuck!"

"Hidan-" Kakuzu still had no idea what to say. He could see him getting sucked into a downward spiral of shame and self-loathing, which wasn't going to help anything.

"You must think I'm a fucking pussy now, huh?" Angry and wounded violet eyes finally met his as Hidan broke away and stumbled back a pace. "If you want to cut loose now I don't fucking blame you. I even fucking disgust _myself_."

"That's not what I think, Hidan." Finally, something he could be definite about. "I think you've been through hell, and I've been _dead_ , and now-" he gestured mutely at the space between them, "- now this. We need time to adjust. It's idiotic to be so hard on yourself."

He reached out tentatively, wanting to pull Hidan back towards him but not feeling that he could presume his touch would be welcome now. "Hm..?" he said, making it a question, willing him to say something; to not flinch away; to stop looking so broken.

Hidan gave a miserable looking half smile, half grimace. "So I'm a fucking idiot now, huh," he began tiredly, before seeming to realise he simply didn't have the emotional energy or the appetite for it. His words trailed off and he turned away, drifting over to the door and opening it a crack to check if the deer had come back.

"Maybe I used to say that a lot," Kakuzu sighed, letting his outstretched hand drop back down to his side. "You might've realised by now that I used to say a lot of things that weren't really... what I meant. I... didn't want you to know how I felt about you because I didn't see how you could possibly feel the same. I'm not sure I do even now. So I-"

"Why not?" Hidan interrupted, whipping around to look at him. "How have I not fucking _shown_ you that in every conceivable way?"

Kakuzu closed his eyes and breathed in deeply. How could Hidan _not_ understand? "I've got _used_ to it. It's ingrained. It's going to take time to unlearn. Hidan - don't be naive! I'm not a _nice_ person. I'm angry and violent in my very _nature_. I'm not _kind_ , or patient, or - or loving-"

"I don't _need_ you to be," Hidan growled, obviously as full of shit as a festival long-drop.

"Hidan, you clearly do," Kakuzu said flatly, holding his gaze challengingly. "You always have. And I am trying to be. I _want_ to be, with you. But for - God, so long - I've been trying to behave as hatefully as I could, just so the hate the world kept throwing at me didn't feel so undeserved. And you look at me, and you touch me as if nothing was wrong with me, but-"

"There _is_ nothing wrong with you, Kakuzu."

Kakuzu threw his arms wide. "I'm a _monster_ , Hidan, _look_ at me!" he shouted. _And you could be an angel_ , he wanted to say, but bit it back. He couldn't possibly open himself up to that degree. _How did this conversation get turned around to me anyway?_ he wondered frantically. He didn't _do_ this kind of personal exposure.

"Bullshit, Kakuzu," Hidan fired back at him. "Just because for some sad fucking reason you're obsessed with beauty and you don't fit your own narrow-as-shit ideal, it doesn't mean you don't fit mine!"

Kakuzu blinked, utterly wrong-footed. That wasn't what he'd expected and miraculously it gave him the headspace he needed to find some perspective. He started to smile. "Oh, come now," he said. "I think I fit you pretty damn well. And there's no need to call yourself narrow - you're a perfectly adequate s-"

" _Fuck_ , Kakuzu!" Now Hidan was smiling again; he couldn't help himself. "We're having a fucking serious conversation, all about your issues and shit, and all you can do is make fucking dick jokes!" He peeled himself away from the doorframe and walked right back over to him; Kakuzu grabbed him around the waist before he could get away again.

"Do you _want_ a serious conversation?" he asked. "Honestly? You?!"

Hidan looked up at him. "I don't know," he said. "Maybe dick jokes is a better idea."

"Yes," Kakuzu agreed, sighing. "Maybe. But I'm- I'm sorry. I'll try not to lash out again."

"Yeah? This morning you said you enjoyed it," Hidan reminded him, arching an eyebrow.

"I just wanted to touch you."

"Kakuzu..." Hidan shook his head. "You fucking idiot. I fucking _let_ you do shit like that because it was better than having you not touch me at all. Just like I used to love our fucking battle routine even though it hurt like hell, because having your guys shooting through me felt like _you_ were inside me." He bit his lip, smiled a crooked little smile. "Seriously, it was all I used to think about sometimes, walking behind you, talking shit just to get your fucking attention - I just wanted you so fucking much."

Kakuzu pulled him over to the futon and sat down on it, tugging Hidan's hands to bring him down too. "I don't think I could do that, now," he said quietly. "I wish I hadn't then." _So many things I wish I'd done differently._

"Ah, shit, I didn't _mind_ , man." It was almost as if Hidan was trying to comfort _him_ now. "It was fucking nothing compared to what I used to do to myself every day. It felt like you were right next to me, like you had my back. Like you always actually fucking _did_ , come to that." His voice cracked a little; he swallowed hard. He didn't want to lose it again. At the back of his mind was still the fear that Kakuzu would blow his shit again if he showed any weakness, even if he _had_ said he wouldn't. And it wasn't the thought of physical pain that scared him.

"But now, we don't have to _do_ that shit," he continued, his voice forced and low so that it wouldn't tremble. "We don't need any fucking _excuses_. Do we?"

"No," Kakuzu said, looking at him sharply. ' _Used to'?_ he thought. _'What I_ _ **used to**_ _do to myself'?_ But he didn't say anything about it, and Hidan didn't seem to notice his reaction - he was turning around, fitting himself between Kakuzu's legs to lean up against his chest and Kakuzu felt his guilt redouble at just how easily he'd been forgiven. And he could think of one or two times he _hadn't_ had Hidan's back off the top of his head, and if he had- But it wouldn't do to think like that now.

"Not anymore," he reiterated, letting his arm steal around him. Maybe he could make it true if he said it enough times. But. He'd never been able to control his anger. He knew that. He was a different person when it really rose in him. Even when it was only starting to, it was next to impossible to get a handle on. He lost all sense of anything he was trying to achieve. Tactics, strategy, the mission, everything but the immediate burning urge to maim and destroy went out of the window. He really had no clue if this was a promise he'd be able to keep.

If he was going to be brutally honest with himself - and he might as well be; after all, hadn't he made something of a speciality of brutality? - had he ever really tried to keep his temper in check? The answer had to be no. Ever since leaving Takigakure he'd just indulged it. In its way it was just as much of a tantrum as Hidan's shouting and swearing. Of course, the forbidding persona he'd cultivated and the devastating way his anger manifested meant that people - until Hidan, perhaps - hadn't tended to call him out on that.

Hidan was turning his head up to look at him and he leant in towards him. All he felt was tenderness now, but it could change so fast, there was no guarantee…

"Anyway," Hidan was saying, "the way you've always been with me... I didn't think you were so fucking unkind. Sure, you could be a bastard sometimes, but you looked out for me, anyway. You were always on my side."

"God, Hidan." Kakuzu's arm around him tightened. "That's-"

"Fucking tragic? Probably. I was actually... pretty fucking lonely when I met you."

"That was possibly because you were killing everyone you met..."

"Yeah, well, I didn't feel like I could connect with them anyway. You might not have been exactly chatty, but you'd always talk to me, at least." He yawned suddenly, and Kakuzu was struck afresh by the dark circles under his eyes and the way his jawbone seemed to move directly under his skin.

"I liked talking to you," he said quietly. "I liked it that you always wanted to. Even if I didn't always have a lot to say. Or a lot I _would_ say." He glanced over to the door, gauging the level of the fading light through the shoji screen. "We'll rest til it's dark," he said. "Have something to eat, and then we'll go. It'll be better to move at night."

Hidan hesitated. A muscle kept jumping in his cheek and he rubbed it unthinkingly against Kakuzu's shoulder. "Deer aren't nocturnal, are they?" he said uncertainly.

Kakuzu regarded him a moment in silence. Hidan's nerviness didn't seem so frustrating to him now - just a new factor in their partnership to be appropriately dealt with. "They're crepuscular, I believe," he said, his voice calm.

Hidan let out a slightly hysterical giggle. "And what the fuck is that when it's at home?"

"They like the dusk and dawn. Not much else."

Glancing towards the door which was letting in a distinctly dusky light, Hidan shivered slightly. Kakuzu lay down and pulled him against him, tugging the cover over them both. After a moment's thought he sat up again, and, with somewhat more care than he habitually used in battle, he released one of his masked creatures and sent it over to stand guard.

Lying down again, black threads weaving him back together, he pulled Hidan back into the crook of his shoulder. "There we are..." he murmured against soft, almost-dry hair. "Sleep, now... you're with me... nothing's going to hurt you..."

"Mm..." Hidan nestled into his shoulder, and Kakuzu carried on talking, his voice a slow comforting drone, watching Hidan's eyelids get heavy and start to flutter down.

"If anything tries to even _touch_ you I'll fuck it up... believe me, its mother wouldn't know it again... anything that comes near you can expect to get torn limb from limb... If you want me to, I'll devote my life to a mass extinction of deer... it'll be cervidarmageddon, we can change the whole damn ecosystem, I don't care... I'll eviscerate anything with hooves... You'll never have to worry about the little fuckers again..."

And to this vicious lullaby, Hidan swiftly drifted off into peaceful-seeming sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the first new chapter for a long long time! Let me know what you think - at this stage I can't even tell if I've got into the same style I used to use... I think I got a lot more verbose while writing 'Is it Life or Art'...
> 
> I have a few ideas for the next chapter, but not much written yet - so feedback would be very helpful!


	8. Onwards to where?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hidan and Kakuzu continue their journey, not really knowing where they're going or what they're going into. And they might both be a little more damaged by their experiences than they'd realised.

When it was fully dark, Kakuzu extricated himself from Hidan, who growled and clung to him in his sleep. Kakuzu brought his masked creature over from the door and had it take his place, then swiftly dressed and went to order them a simple meal to have before leaving. Glancing back from the door he couldn't help but smile at the sight of them together - Hidan's arm flung over the mass of writhing black tendrils; a claw shaped black hand resting on the ivory skin of his shoulder. They'd always seemed to like Hidan, as if they were Kakuzu's instincts without his inhibitions - or perhaps they'd just recognised a fellow blood-crazed killing machine.

But remembering that last time he'd seen Hidan standing in front of them all he had to take a deep breath and close his eyes a moment. He held hard onto the doorframe, trying to ground himself, but with his eyes closed the images were even more vivid. Hidan pointing to the water creature dissolving in an oily black puddle, looking - just for a moment - like a child whose pet had died. Not so long after, his hand letting go of his scythe, panic in his eyes. Swiftly replaced with his own brand of overconfident insouciance, sure, but still visible to Kakuzu all the same. Why, _why_ hadn't he smashed that kid with the lightning creature? He'd only _needed_ the fire and wind to deal with Kakashi! It would've been easy to stop him taking Hidan away. Easy.

He'd made so many bad choices that day. What had been wrong with him? The only explanation he could come up with was that his brain had been working so hard at suppressing any recognition of the chemistry that had grown up between himself and Hidan that it had actually begun to cloud his judgement. He'd suppressed awareness of genuine risks along with it. He hadn't been fully concentrating, and they'd both paid such a high price.

Again, now, he remembered so vividly that awful pain in his chest. And a different kind of pain in his heart - _Hidan's in trouble. What have I allowed to happen?_ Thinking; _sort this mess out. Then go and sort out that little idiot, again._ The backup coming. Kakashi saying: _the next generation always catch us up, it's the natural order of things._ Then, nothing. Nothing at all; a chunk of life missing. Nothing until a sudden sense of warmth beside him, on top of him, pressing against him - and he was so cold. The heartrending awareness of Hidan crying - that Hidan was there at all was information that wasn't processed for a few moments more - Hidan was crying, and his head had leapt right back in with its familiar mantra. S _ort this mess out_. So that's what he'd tried to do.

And now. Well, the mess was far from over. He shook his head, trying to clear the images, and turned into the dimly lit hallway. If they could just get far enough away while Konoha regrouped. If they could manage not to leave a mile wide trail of destruction behind them. If they could stick together, not start to hate each other... _Stop thinking about it_ , he told himself sternly. _You keep dwelling! It's not good for you. Stop it._

* * *

Hidan awoke in a mess of tendrils. He struggled into a sitting position, not exactly alarmed by the creature but a little disconcerted because the chakra signature had made him sure that Kakuzu was still beside him. Threads were snaking around his wrists, combing through his hair. As he automatically tried to detach himself the mask face swung around as if to gaze into his eyes. Very slightly menacingly.

"Hey buddy," he said, tilting his head to one side. "You able to give me a little space?" The threads tightened and a clawed hand emerged to rest immovably on his forearm. "No?" Hidan chuckled. "Alright then. Hey, does Kakuzu _see_ through you guys? How does he even control you? Fuck, are you _part_ of him? Or do you just live in him?"

The mask tipped noncommittally from side to side. "Six of one and half a dozen of the other, huh?" Hidan relaxed back against the black mass - no point wearing himself out struggling with this beastie - he didn't mind lying in bed a little longer. It was in constant low level movement, the individual threads slipping and writhing over each other. It wasn't uncomfortable; he closed his eyes and tried to imagine that it was Kakuzu holding him. It didn't quite work though, not now he was fully awake. "Where is he anyway?" he said, opening his eyes. The mask jerked towards the door.

"Well, duh!" He giggled as a thread tickled his cheek, then the mask itself pushed against his face like an animal leaving its scent on him. "Hey, you're getting keen!" he said. He caught his bottom lip between his teeth, frowning a little. The idea that Kakuzu's consciousness _wasn't_ animating this creature was starting to disturb him now. And its next move was to begin to insinuate itself between his legs; it was with a fair amount of relief that he saw the door begin to slide open.

Kakuzu had the presence of mind to set the tray with their food down on the floor as the creature dropped Hidan and hurled itself back towards him like a cat caught crapping on the rug and dived into his back. He sewed it firmly back into position. "Hidan?" he said, alarmed, striding over to the futon. "Was it _harassing_ you?"

"It was getting pretty fucking frisky, man, yeah." Hidan straightened his yukata which was considerably wider open than it had been. "It was dead set against me getting away, as well."

"That's unusual!" Kakuzu leant down to look into his eyes, a finger just hovering under his chin, raising his face up. "I didn't command it to behave like that, I assure you! It must've been mimicking my behaviour in some way, I suppose. Perhaps it's got used to being near you. Forgive me."

"Hey, it's okay." Hidan took the hand Kakuzu offered him and got to his feet. "I guess it thought it was just doing it's job..."

"Playing with the boss's honey isn't part of the job description!" Kakuzu's voice was like velvet now; he stroked along Hidan cheekbone with the backs of his fingers. "I won't be giving _that_ one the gig next time I want a babysitter for you!"

* * *

As soon as they'd eaten and gathered up their few possessions they hit the road. Kakuzu had managed to procure a cloak - and some trousers - for Hidan and he was glad to have his own back; the night was cold.

He drew his headgear on and Hidan immediately reached up to remove the mask. "No-one's around," he reasoned. "And it's dark as fuck. I want to see your face!"

"It's dark as fuck," Kakuzu echoed. "So there won't be much for you to see." But he let him anyway, taking it from him to stow away in his pocket; taking his hand with it and not letting go. So they walked down the dark road hand in hand.

"Kakuzu?" Hidan said, after a few minutes of silence.

"Yes, Hidan?"

"Where are we going to go?"

"Away." Kakuzu glanced down at him, silver hair and pale skin illuminated in the moonlight, and marvelled silently at the trust that Hidan still so unhesitatingly placed in him. "That's as far as I've got. So far we're heading out of the Land of Fire towards the North-West. We'll need to avoid the Land of Rain, of course..."

"You really do want to leave the Akatsuki then?"

"Hidan, there's never been a better opportunity. I was coerced into joining, just like I helped to do to you. There was an agreement - protection. That's been violated. I don't mean for me - no-one could've helped what happened to me. But you. Where were they? They left you - they _abandoned_ you." Glancing down; seeing a frown start to gather between Hidan's eyebrows and suddenly so afraid of wounding him further, he added, less seriously, "Maybe they doubted their ability to keep you in order without me!"

"Or to put me back together," Hidan suggested with a flicker of a wry smile that somehow spiked Kakuzu's growing anger even more. "Maybe they didn't want to deal with an angry severed head for all fucking eternity!"

"But seriously, now, where were they?" Despite both of their attempts to lighten the tone of the conversation; Kakuzu found he couldn't drop it after all. "Zetsu could've got you out of there! _Leader-sama_ " - his tone was scathing and bitter - "would've known your location from your ring. That reminds me!" He tugged off his own ring, then Hidan's and hurled them as far as he could back into the blackness. "Not any more!"

* * *

A few more miles down the road and it started to rain. It came on stealthily at first, then sheets of it. Thunder rumbled overhead; forked lighting split the sky. Kakuzu winced. Hidan pressed close to his side, trying to scrounge a little shelter.

"We should try to find somewhere," Kakuzu gasped. "This is ridiculous!"

"Fuck!" Hidan hunched over, trying to present a smaller target to the elements. "This is bullshit! It was a fucking beautiful day!"

"That's really no guarantee of anything..." Kakuzu felt obliged to point out, but if he was honest he felt similarly betrayed. Plus, the lightning was suddenly making him deeply uncomfortable. It was ridiculous, really. He'd used a massive lightning attack himself so many times in the past. He'd relished the power of it then, the crackling energy. Not now. With the next flash his hearts were pounding and he was coming out in a cold sweat. For a moment he actually thought he was face down on the muddy ground, his jawbone dislocated, his body numb, he could hear a high pitched twittering noise that he told himself over and over wasn't really there but it made no difference. It was really there in his head.

"Kakuzu!" he heard, and, _Hidan?_ he thought. _Thank goodness, he's just in time. Another moment and Kakashi would have skewered me with that raikiri - but will he know what to do? I need to warn him, I need to tell him about that jutsu but I can't speak-_

"Kakuzu!" Hidan gripped his shoulders. "What the fuck's up? Fuck, you're pale!" He shook him a little. "Why've you stopped? Hey, don't do this to me, man!"

Kakuzu couldn't stop shaking. He began to recognise that he was standing in the rain with Hidan, not lying in a crater, alone in the burning sun - but even that couldn't force his body back under his control. He dimly remembered having suffered episodes like this once before, after barely escaping from Konoha alive almost seventy years ago. _This can be a normal reaction!_ he told himself desperately. _Normal. A normal reaction to a massively traumatic experience._

But it didn't make him feel normal. Hidan had his face between his hands now, and he could feel him trembling as well. "Kakuzu," he was saying, and if there was a tremble in his voice he was suppressing it with everything he had. "Kakuzu, what's with that faraway look - look at _me_ you stupid fucking prick! Where the fuck are you?!" He wasn't doing such a good job at suppressing a rising note of panic in his tone.

Kakuzu just about manage to focus on him then, and the old habit to reassure and calm him kicked in, albeit weakly. _What would I say if this was him?_ he asked himself. _What_ _ **did**_ _I say? I said breathe, breathe._ He made himself try to breathe.

"Alright," Hidan said, getting on the bandwagon a little late. "Alright, alright, that's better, man, that's better."

Kakuzu took another deep breath. He was gripping Hidan's forearms so tightly he knew he'd be leaving marks but Hidan's steady gaze into his eyes didn't falter and it kept him grounded. "We're together, OK?" Hidan said, and his voice was calmer now too. "Nothing can fucking _touch_ us when we're together, remember?" His hands shifted to link together around the back of Kakuzu's neck and he pulled himself up so their faces were level. His lips parted, he hesitated; then, "Say something," he pleaded. "I'm shit at this, Kakuzu, and it fucking scares me, you have no fucking idea how much I need you to be okay-"

"I'm sorry, Hidan," Kakuzu forced out, his voice was shockingly ragged. "I'm sorry to scare you." He released the bruising hold on him, wrapped his arms around him, pulled him closer.

"Bullshit, you don't need to say that crap," Hidan said, slightly breathlessly because Kakuzu was squashing the air out of him, "Even if I could never even _see_ you again I'd need you to be okay, I just-"

Kakuzu relaxed his hold just a fraction. "Don't even think about a prospect that awful," he whispered hoarsely. Another bolt of lightning, and before he could think about it Hidan's lips were against his, the thunder cracked and rumbled above them and Hidan's tongue was in his mouth, his hand on Kakuzu's jawbone, tilting his head, making his mouth open wider, and he found if he poured all his focus into that point of warmth and connection then, yes, he was aware of being utterly soaked and freezing, of crashing and rushing sounds all around them, but it was okay. He felt okay. His hearts began to settle into a normal rhythm.

Rain was pouring down Hidan's face, he could taste it as he kissed him, he didn't want to stop, but- "We really ought to find shelter," he murmured finally.

"Mm," Hidan assented, kissing him one last time before they made a shaky, painfully halting dash in the most promising direction, where something that might be a cliff face loomed through the darkness.

About a quarter of a mile along the base of the cliff - shielded by it from the worst of the weather - they found a pitiful little enclave beneath an overhang, surrounded by scrubby shrubs and bracken. Even optimistically, it couldn't be called a cave - a hollow, at most, but so long as the wind didn't change direction it would keep the rain off them. Kakuzu managed to get a small fire going though there wasn't much material to burn, only what they could scrounge from the very base of the cliff. Then they collapsed exhaustedly together, attempting to dry off a little.

Not so long ago they'd sat for six days in the pouring rain, performing a demanding jutsu, and they'd thought nothing of it other than as a mild inconvenience. Something to bitch and moan about for a bit, no more. But now. They were both low on chakra - something neither of them had experienced for a very long time. They were beaten up physically and emotionally; they had to accept that things were different now.

Kakuzu unrolled a travelling blanket that he'd also managed to procure at the onsen and wrapped it around them. Hidan's cloak wasn't anything like the quality of the Akatsuki ones - it was already soaked right through. Kakuzu used his threads to unbuckle it - his fingers felt numb. "I've told you before about not scrimping on the essentials, Kakuzu!" Hidan said through chattering teeth. "What _is_ this piece of shit, a négligée?"

"This piece of shit is all there was." Kakuzu propped it on two sticks by the fire, and unfastened his own cloak, holding it open. "Come on, then."

Hidan eased in next to him. "Fuck, I didn't appreciate mine enough while I had it!" He wriggled closer, getting an arm behind Kakuzu. "Shit, you're still almost warm!"

Rain pattered down, and down and down and on and on. Kakuzu tugged the cloak and the blanket tighter around them. "Out of all of this, why is it the fact that it's autumn now that's the hardest to accept?" he mused.

"Because you've never liked losing time, have you, you impatient fuck," Hidan said into his chest. "Unless you're fucking keeping _me_ waiting!"

"I suppose you're right," Kakuzu sighed. He looked down at Hidan, who'd closed his eyes. "Are you going back to sleep?"

"No," Hidan's voice was muffled and drowsy.

"You are..." He tightened his hold about him, stopping him from slipping down further, then couldn't resist running his fingertips lightly over his perfectly smooth skin, teasing him back into wakefulness.

"S'all right for you, fresh from your fucking eternal rest and all that," Hidan griped. "But I didn't exactly get a lot of good quality sleep down in that hole!" He hesitated a moment. "What was it like, anyway? What happened after you ... you know ... _died_?"

How to put this? Kakuzu hesitated too, then bit the bullet. "Hidan, there was nothing. Nothing at all. No heaven, but I wouldn't have expected that. No hell either. Just nothing at all from the moment the raikiri hit me to the moment I woke up to find you weeping over my lifeless form!" He kept his words light, because he suspected this might not sit well with Hidan.

And indeed, Hidan's hand went straight to his rosary. Kakuzu could feel the cold metal against his chest as Hidan brought it up to his mouth, felt Hidan's lips moving. And he felt something he didn't expect, which was a surge of an emotion that he could really only characterise as grief. Was there always going to be this wall between them? This point of no-contact? _I don't want to share him_ , he found himself thinking. And he didn't want to admit it, but sharing him with something so illogical and so vicious felt even worse.

"Maybe you don't remember," Hidan said. "Maybe people _can't_ remember..."

"Most people _don't come back_ from that much dead." Kakuzu's voice was curt. "What I had was what there is; nothing."

"How can you _not_ believe now?!" Hidan shot at him. "After my heart brought you back? How much more is it going to _take_?!"

"Hidan." Kakuzu pressed his lips together. " _No_ amount." It was a bad choice of words - Hidan's face lit up a moment before Kakuzu inexorably continued, "There's _nothing_ that could change me. ' _Jashin-sama_ '-" - and as usual he couldn't keep the mocking note out of his voice as he said the name, though he hadn't meant it to be there - "-could appear before us right now and it wouldn't make me accept him as a god, or feel that I in any way owe him the kind of devotion you put yourself through hell for!"

"That doesn't make any sense! How are you always so _fucking_ sure you're right?!" The light was gone and now it was Hidan's face that was etched with incredulous grief.

"I simply don't have the capacity to believe in divinity. Or for worship." Kakuzu wanted to shut this down now. Why had he let it be opened up in the first place? _Idiot, idiot,_ he chastised himself. _Why couldn't you have let it go for once?_ "Our techniques complement each other, that's all, in fact you could say they're perfect together. I don't for a moment think what you did would have worked on an ... ordinary body..."

"It _wasn't_ working at first. It took prayer as well!" Hidan and struggled out of the blanket and got up. "You were banging on before about not having the capacity for love and that turned out to be bullshit! Didn't it?"

Kakuzu got up as well. "That wasn't exactly what I said," he replied pedantically.

Hidan let out a little huff of annoyance and grabbed his still wet cloak, started to pull it on. "Oh, come back here, Hidan!" Kakuzu urged. "That's not anywhere near dry!"

Hidan just shrugged; Kakuzu grabbed him by the shoulders. "Where are you going? What happened to 'nothing can touch us when we're together'?" Again, accidentally, the mocking, mimicking tone - he didn't know where it came from, it didn't express how he felt at all.

"That was before you took my heart and literally shat all over it!" Hidan shot back at him.

Kakuzu couldn't help laughing at that. "No, no, Hidan, I literally took your heart, but I only _metaphorically_ shat all over it!" He held onto Hidan as he tried to twist away from him, his smile fading. "And I'm sorry for that, OK? I'm sorry. What can I say? I can't do what I can't do."

"Well, neither can I!" There was a strange flatness in Hidan's voice and he stared up at him, emptiness in his eyes.

_What did he mean by that?_ Kakuzu let go of his shoulders. Was he just saying any crap that popped into his head? But he sounded so uncharacteristically serious. Did he mean..? "You mean you can't love me, then?" The words just slid out, he hadn't even meant to say it aloud, but there it was. "Well, how could I blame you," he added, turning away. He leant heavily against the wet rock. So tired. The events of the day seemed unreal now, like a bright and perfect dream. He'd stay like this a moment, when he turned around Hidan would most likely be gone. And then. The future looked blanker than the nothing that had started this argument in the first place.

"Not this again." Hidan's voice brought him back to his senses. He hadn't gone anywhere. "Is this how it's going to be every fucking time we have a fucking disagreement? Fucking, _'You don't love me'!_ " Now it was his turn with the mocking mimicry. "Every fucking time! It's _not_ what I meant. And who even _brought_ the word 'love' into it? Not _you_ for fucking sure!"

Kakuzu turned around. "Alright." He walked over to where Hidan stood, right up to him so that Hidan had to tilt his face right up to look at him. "I love you, Hidan. I _love_ you, and I don't want to share you with fucking _Jashin_ or anyone. I don't want to watch you _stabbing_ yourself anymore, I don't to see your blood spilling onto the ground, I don't want to hear you wincing as you pull a _pike_ out of your heart. And I don't want you gasping in ecstasy from anything but _my_ touch."

Hidan gazed up at him open mouthed, seemingly speechless.

"I know it's unreasonable," he continued. "I know I don't _own_ you. I don't expect you to change anything. But if I seem ungrateful to Jashin, well, those are some of the reasons why. If he exists, I hate him. And if he doesn't, you've been through so much for nothing."

"Kakuzu!" Hidan said finally, his voice cracking. He laid a hand on his chest. "Wow, your hearts are really thumping." He fitted his forehead into the crook of Kakuzu's neck, hiding his face from him. "Let me tell you something, then." He took a deep breath. "I don't want any of that, either. I'm fucking _scared_ of doing my next ritual. I've lost faith that I'll even survive it. And I've - I feel like I've just ... just had enough of pain." He shifted his head a little, to glance up at Kakuzu. "And ... the ecstasy?" - Kakuzu could feel rather than see his little smile - "Well ... let's just say I've discovered something else that can get me there." And his body moved up against Kakuzu's so sensually, the tiniest shift, but Kakuzu was half hard in seconds. " _More_ than get me there..." Hidan added.

Kakuzu held onto him tightly, pressing back against him, and there were actually tears in his eyes as he said, "Then, please, _please_ , can you _not_ do it?"

"I don't know," Hidan whispered back. "What if I fucking _fall apart_! What if I -"

"I don't think you will." Kakuzu smiled, pressing his lips against Hidan's wet hair and blinking rapidly. "I think - well I've thought about this a lot, actually..." Perhaps this was too much. But Hidan was hearing him at last, for the first time cracks were showing in his devotion; he couldn't stop now. "At first I thought it might just be a bloodline limit that's very very hard to awaken," he said, trying to keep his voice as level and soothing as he could. "But now I think it's more likely some kind of blood contract. Like a summoning technique, but somehow you summon another person's chakra pathways into your own body. And maybe Jashin _is_ a thing, in another realm," - for some reason he imagined some kind of horrible gargoyle squatting on a rock - "and think about it, if all those tiresome Kuchiyose types don't summon anything for a year or two it doesn't mean their contract is void. It's binding, even beyond death. I think _you've_ already paid and _Jashin_ is the one who's contracted to keep on delivering. He owes _you_. You don't have to follow his _way_. You can do whatever the hell you like!"

Hidan was staring up at him with a crazy amount of mingled hope and fear in his eyes.

"We can just play it by ear," Kakuzu murmured soothingly. "If you start disintegrating, by all means let's _both_ start singing Jashin's praises! Otherwise, let's stop turning you into a human pincushion, OK?"

Hidan hesitated and Kakuzu braced himself for furious accusations of blasphemy but, "maybe," Hidan whispered. "OK, maybe. I'll think about it, I need to think about it." He bit his lip; Kakuzu reached up and gently freed it, stroked along it, slid the tip of a finger over his tongue, leant in to kiss him.

"Think as much as you want, love," he said. "There's no hurry. If there's one thing we have got, it's time..." He led him back to the fire and peeled the cloak off him, propped it back on its sticks. "Come on, let's get this thing dry. When the rain lets up we should press on."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed! Please write me a comment - I'd love to hear from you!


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